Fortitude has always been a show that confounds expectations, and this episode again demonstrates its commitment to treating all its characters as equally important, regardless of actor or screen time - albeit with mixed results.
Michael Gambon's Henry was a ticking clock from the beginning, given he was already dying when we met him, but his death here still has impact - and so does the fact that he may well have taken Morton with him.
Morton's journey in search of Henry takes in yet more of the stunning cinematography that Fortitude excels at, and the moment that Henry unexpectedly fires on Morton is one of the more surprising of this always-surprising series. It appears to come out of nowhere, and Henry didn't seem capable of such willing violence, but it all makes more sense when framed by the later revelation that Henry is Sheriff Andersen's father.
That reveal is curious, in that it feels like something we've known all along, even though we haven't. It makes the emotional parting between the pair last week even more affecting in retrospect, and adds extra shades to plenty of previous scenes in the series.
Up on that mountaintop, Michael Gambon and Stanley Tucci are marvellous as they each face death - one slow and inevitable, the other violent and all-to-soon. Gambon's Henry eventually takes the quick way out, but not before alerting Andersen to the situation.
Leaving it in Andersen's hands is a delicious dilemma to explore, and Dormer does great work wrestling with the quandary, while at the end, Gambon's craggy features help convey a lifetime's weight without a single word. Having recently retired from stage acting due to health reasons, it's unclear how many more performances we'll get from this true British great, and his presence will surely be missed throughout the remaining episodes here.
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Elsewhere, it's revealed that, rather than an oil deposit under the ice, it's actually an "elephants' graveyard of mammoth bones" that Pettigrew discovered, and Markus continues to grieve for Shirley. Being the monster that we know he is, Markus stealing Shirley's body probably shouldn't surprise us, but the tenderness with which he treats her might.
In the morgue, he plants a tender kiss upon her, hinting that perhaps he truly did love her, even if it was in the worst way possible. When he gives her a ship burial, Viking style, we'll be damned if it isn't actually quite lovely. Humanising Markus has been one of the show's greatest feats - we know he developed his, erm, proclivities, due to certain mummy issues as a child, and now we see that he is capable of love. He's still a monster, but it's much more interesting to watch a complex and well-rounded one.
In the rest of Fortitude, what basically amounts to a quarantine is put into effect, leading to a tense stand-off at the now-closed airport as Jules tries to abscond with Liam to escape the ever-unstable Frank. There's also a great moment when Hildy delivers the "good news" to Jules that Liam is uninfected, entirely oblivious to the fact that this leaves no excuse for Liam's behaviour. "Hi Jules, good news! Your son's not sick, he's just evil!" It's small wonder Jules isn't exactly throwing a party…
And then, in the episode's weirdest strand, we get more glimpses of Ronnie, still mysteriously traumatised, bloodied and unmoving, and still pulling desperately for air. Pushed back to prominence is his pal Jason, who appears to have been the cause of Ronnie's predicament, given his bloodied knuckles, but there's surely more to it than that.
The problem here is, as effective as the horrifying glimpses of Ronnie are, and as creepy as it is to see Aaron McCusker's Jason being blank and menacing, presumably infected, Jason simply isn't an established enough character to shoulder this much mystery and significance. He's been absent for weeks and has suddenly become important again, but who is he? We know virtually nothing about him, and what we do know is one-dimensional. His family, too, are jarringly pushed to prominence despite barely registering as a presence on the show up until now. If Fortitude wants us to care about what happens to this particular corner of the town, the writing has some serious catching up to do.
